by the window

You're standing by the window
to the sounds of Cat Power
or Joseph Arthur
or some other vague song
that no one wants to hear
but me
and I know the words,
sewn into the lining
of a heart
that remembers things
better forgotten,
and it's all I can do
not to step out on the ledge
and prove to you, or myself
that I'm not scared
of endings, and edges, and obscurity,
and that I could go on
if you left,
like a clich?
of tears, and pain, and love
gracefully easing itself out.

And the relief would be
like removing a splinter
growing into the fibres of skin,
that has forgotten how to feel,
but the ghost of pain
remains under the surface
and you can push and pull and turn
and the ache stays,
dull and constant
along with the dust, settled on the frame
of shutters, painted white
slowly translating into a darker shade
of overcast grief
that it learned from you,
along with the filth of a life
better not lived.

And I know,
that
is why you stay.

Not because you want to,
but because there is this tug, heave, wrench
of words not said
and love that was never given
to the people who noticed,
but starved in the hands of women
who didn't deserve it,
gorging themselves on something, someone else,
except your kisses that shouldn't have been wasted
on turned, blushing cheeks
that have been turning away for too long.

Yes,
you stay
because you ache to know
that you are needed
in more ways than one -
needed for hands, thoughts, desires, slipping
into fractures
of bones and hearts and feelings
and the want in the middle of the night
for the push and pull and turn
beneath sheets, between legs
and the taking to knees,
that tells you
you are loved.

And yes,
I stay,
because I know

we ache.